Beckett at 16 Months

Beckett took his first steps right before he turned 14 months old and he switched over to being a full-time walker right before he turned 15 months old.  It is so much fun to have him walking.  I can’t get over how much I love holding his hand and walking into places together.  Or how much I love it when he clings to my leg.  Melts my heart.

People warned me that he’ll get into so much more once he’s walking.  I can’t say that I agree.  Maybe people didn’t realize how much he got into things before?!?  One change, though, is how quiet he is around the house.  When he was crawling I always knew exactly where he was.  I could turn my attention away from him for a minute and know when he’d move an inch—his hands slapped loudly on the wood floors as he scurried off.  And I knew if he was getting into trouble because I could hear him start to crawl faster.  But now that he’s on his feet, he’s super stealthy.  I turn my back for one second and he’s gone and I never know which way he went.  Keeps me on my toes for sure!

We signed him up for a Mother’s Day Out program at a local church for the fall.  He’ll go to MDO a few days a week for half days, while I go to work.  I visited several programs and feel so confident that I found one that will be perfect for him and his personality.  He’s so sweet so I knew I wanted someplace that would nurture him and love him well, but he’s also go-go-go and loves to explore and learn and play hard so I wanted to make sure he got some adventure too.  He’s going to have an absolute blast, I’m sure of it!

The last couple months have seen some big changes to our daily routine.  For one, we dropped Beckett’s morning nap.  The writing had been on the wall for his morning nap for a while, but I tried to hang on to it as long as possible because it was my morning nap too :).  And anyone who knows me knows that my morning nap is sacred.  But alas, all good things must come to an end.  So we dropped it just before spring break (right as he turned 15 months old).  Y’all.  Do you know how long a morning with a busy one year old can be?  Holy moly.  Kolby and I each had a day where we were home playing with Beckett and having a blast, doing this or that around the house, having breakfast, doing a load of laundry, playing outside, coloring, laughing, etc. and figured it was about time for lunch when we looked at the clock and it was barely 9am.  It didn’t help that Beckett has always woken up for the day at 5:30 or 6am.  But after a week or two we got used to it and now it’s really nice to have the morning free where we can meet up with friends or run errands or go somewhere and not have to worry about coming home for a nap.

With the move to one nap a day came the final farewell to Beckett’s beloved exercise ball.  I think I’ve covered this well here, but in case you missed it, a series of events led to us bouncing Beckett to sleep on a giant exercise ball for his naps.  I realize how nuts that sounds.  We had tried to wean him off it before but once he learned some sign language it was a lost hope because I’d try to put him to sleep another way and he’d curl out his bottom lip in the saddest fashion and then point to the ball and sign “night night, please?”  “night night, please?” (Not to mention that when I would give in and move to the ball, he’d smile so contentedly and occasionally sign “thank you.”)  But Kolby and I had resolved to quit cold turkey when we moved to one nap, and we did.  It was rough for us all but I can now proudly say that I no longer cradle my 25 pound toddler and sit on an inflatable rubber ball to put him to sleep.  Well, maybe proud isn’t exactly the right word.  In either event, he falls asleep on his own now like a big boy (and like he has done at night time for quite some time now).  He takes his nap right after lunch and usually sleeps for 2 hours or so.  It is wonderful!  He also finally has gotten attached to a comfort object/lovey/whatever… he has a stuffed animal monkey (creatively named “monkey”) that he sleeps with now and it has really helped smooth the transition to him falling asleep on his own.

I’m afraid to even write this for fear that it will jinx it, but Beckett has started sleeping in.  Cue the hallelujah chorus.  I don’t know if it was the dropping of a nap or the daylight savings time change or something else, but for a while now he’s started sleeping in until around 7:30am.  That is TWO HOURS later than usual.  I don’t even have the words to express how exciting this is.

The other big change is that I finished weaning him.  I can’t say that I’d really planned to nurse him until he was 16 months old, but apparently that’s what we did and it worked for us and I loved every minute of it (minus newborn weeks 2-3, ha!).  By his first birthday I had him down to three feedings a day and when he turned 1 I swapped milk in for the mid-day feeding.  [Which meant I no longer had to pump on the days that I worked (or ever, actually).  HALLELUJAH.  If it weren’t for the hope of future little ones I would totally have burned my breastpump in effigy.]  Then on our spring break trip I swapped milk in for his bedtime feeding.  I held on to his morning feeding the longest because honestly, I wasn’t ready to start my day at 5:30 or 6am.  When he’d wake up then, we would all go to the living room and I’d nurse Beckett while Kolby and I ate bowls of cereal and watched a show on Netflix.  It was mindless and easy and a great slow start to the day, and as a not-morning-person I can’t tell you how much I need that down time.  If the alternative was him chugging a sippy cup of milk in 5 minutes and being ready to play at 5:35 in the morning, I wasn’t about to volunteer for that change.  But once he started sleeping in, dropping that last nursing happened pretty naturally because every other day or so there wouldn’t be time for me to nurse him—either because I had to go to work, or we had to get ready for swim lessons or some other morning plans.  Then one day, maybe a week or so after he turned 16 months old, I just decided it was a good of a time as any to stop.  I had hoped he would just lose interest and self-wean so I wouldn't have to be the one to make the call, but he just never did.  So I had to cut him off, which was a bummer but he did just fine.

Weaning him was bittersweet for sure.  I loved nursing him so much.  But thankfully, I’d gotten into this routine with him of cradling him across my lap and rocking him for a few minutes at nap time and bedtime, and just talking to him and telling him things and singing to him—and he decided it was exactly what he wanted too.  He wasn’t really a big cuddler before, but I think weaning him made him crave that closeness.  I feel like that made it less emotional to let go of nursing him, since I had a new way to get some down time with him.  We do the same when he first wakes up; I hold him and ask him what he dreamed about and what he wants to do that day (to which he always says "Wa-Wa" (play with his friend William)).  It’s just a brief time of calmness before he’s off and running, but it’s one of the best parts of my day.

*This is totally unrelated to this post but I have to share this tale of a breastfeeding mom, a story that any of you fellow moms can probably laugh along with.  So, working two days a week meant I had to pump at work.  I have a lot of really funny stories from that (to name one other, my office created a room for me to use then slapped a big sign on the door that said “Lactation Room.”  Thanks for your discretion, guys.), but here’s one that still makes me laugh when I think about it.  I was at an all-day work conference and had no choice but to use a stall in a public restroom to pump.  Wasn’t my first time to have to do that, and wasn’t my last.  Anyway, so I’m sitting on the toilet (nowhere else to sit, obviously) just doing my thing when these two women walk in to the other stalls and one says to the other, “What the heck is that sound?”  And I’m thinking, well, that’s the lovely sound of a double electric breast pump which I’m awkwardly using like two feet away from you right now.  I don’t answer and neither does her friend so she says again, “Seriously, what is that sound?” then later, “Do you not hear that?!?”  I really don’t know if I should say anything, and apparently her friend knows it’s coming from one of the stalls so she’s polite enough not to comment.  Then the woman says, “It sounds like an electric soap dispenser that keeps going off.”  to which I thought, man, I’ve been listening to this thing for nine months and couldn’t quite place the sound.  She was totally right.  That’s EXACTLY what the motor on my pump sounds like.  Touché.  Anyway, she exits the stall and I guess puts it together that it’s coming from my stall and that she’s made a fool of herself with all the commentary and she and her friend quickly scurry off. Oh the joys of motherhood. *

A change maybe even bigger than all those changes to his routine is how much he personally has grown up.  His mobility has soared.  We went to our neighborhood park just six weeks after his very first steps and he shocked me by dominating the playground completely on his own.  I stood and watched as he climbed up the stairs, toddled across the play set, and threw himself head first down the slide.  Then he did it all over again several times, all with the cheesiest grin on his face.  It’s crazy how fast he transitioned from a crawling baby to an off-and-running toddler. 

About as soon as he decided he had the walking thing down pat, he became so talkative again.  At his 15 month check-up the doctor asked about how many words he says and she seemed shocked when we ballparked it at 25 words.  Plus maybe a dozen more that he signs but can’t say yet (a lot of words that he used to only sign he now says too).  He loves to squeal as he walks and say hi repeatedly (sometimes with a wave and sometimes with a finger point and a “HEYYY!”) and just generally make noise.  He’s gotten into a roaring phase lately and he also likes to boo.  His little voice is so sweet, I can’t wait until he starts stringing words together and really talking.

This kid still just loves to learn.  He now knows several animals and has a sound or motion (he does a sic ‘em for bears, points to his nose for pigs, etc.) for each of them.  Monkeys are definitely his favorite (which is why we thought to try a monkey for his comfort object).  Dogs are a close second.  A few months ago, Kolby’s mom started this thing with him where she’d say, “Beckett, what does the Y say?” And he’d say “ya-ya-ya.”  We tried it with another letter later and then one thing led to another and he now knows a lot of the letters—what sounds they make and he can also recognize many of them by sight.  I guess I’ll be getting him a chapter book for summer reading?!?

I’m surprised every day by what he understands.  But that has raised the stakes around here because it’s getting to that time where we give him an instruction and we know he understands it yet he willfully disobeys it.  Like asking him to not open the trash can and reach his hand in, or to stay seated in his high chair.  Enter the start of our real parenting journey: discipline.  Arg!  Kolby and I laugh every day at our many false starts on trying to discipline him.  Neither of us are good at keeping a straight face.  We have no idea what we are doing but are just flying by the seat of our pants and it’s really funny too for Kolby and me to watch what the other comes up with.  He’s only one.  We still have some time to get a game plan together, right?!? 

Also, another big transition this past month is Beckett is sloooowly moving on from his obsession with hats.  Anyone want to guess what his new obsession is?  Not shockingly, it’s baseball.  Or “ba-baw.”  He’s liked baseball for a while—mostly thanks to Kolby getting him baseball cards or talking about baseball—but things really took a turn after Opening Day.  Kolby said he really watched the game and mimicked the swinging and throwing as the players were doing it.  He came home and pretty much from that point on the kid has been all about baseball.  He suddenly started showing interest in this baseball tee toy that we’d borrowed from Tucker months ago that Beckett had never really touched, would walk around swinging his arms and saying, “swi” and would point at the TV and ask to watch “ba-baw.”  It sincerely started as HIS thing, not something that Kolby was pushing, although he’s thrilled and obviously is encouraging it now, ha.  

Every stage has been my favorite, and that sure holds true for the stage he’s in now.  He asks for “mama” a lot and there is nothing sweeter.  His version of a hug is just leaning into you, and even that is just the best feeling in the world.  And he will walk up to and hug other people on command, so we’ve really made some people’s day lately.  He is so stinkin’ friendly.  He always says thank you to others when we ask him to (he signs it, and it looks a lot like blowing a kiss which works too I guess!).  He loves playing with other kids, especially older kids.  He still gives breathy open-mouth-tongue-out kisses (gross).  He thrives in new environments just as much as familiar ones. He's fearless.

I know there was something so precious about rocking with this teeny tiny baby on my chest, but there is something even more magical about rocking with a big boy across my lap and knowing him so well now and watching him squeeze his monkey tight and say “nigh nigh” and give me this smile that says that he has everything in life he could ever want.  He sometimes gets in these silly moods at night and Kolby and I think about what needs to be done after we put him to bed—dinner needs to be cleared, dishes need to be done, the house needs to be reset for tomorrow, etc.—and then we just look at each other and say screw it, let’s just enjoy him for a while.  We watch as he toddles around the living room in his footed pajamas making crazy noises and climbing on the couch wanting to roll around and be tickled, and dragging his favorite toys out of his play room to show us and chasing Maya (“naya”) and tasting all of her toys.  He is just the best kid in the world.  Our pride and joy for sure.

Some pictures lately (in no particular order):

Painting a picture for dada. It was actually a disaster of an idea.

 Messy eater.

 Someone has to keep the weeds knocked down.

 Reading the book that Kolby and I wrote for him and pointing at "mama!" and "dada!" on the pages. P.S. his crazy hair was super voluminous that day so it looks like his head is shaped like an alien cartoon.

There is a page about baseball that he saw and immediately pretended to swing his bat.  Love the expression on his face.. he really works hard on his swings!

He slept for his first 12 hour stretch and woke up with quite a bed head.

 My little errand buddy.  Yes, he wears his pjs a lot.

 Kolby took him on an special errand one morning to Target to get a real baseball tee.  Without hesitation he put the ball on the tee and hit it perfectly and really hard, over and over again.

 Indiana Jones.

 We do swim lessons with my friend Laura and her little boy Declan, and we always meet up for some play time beforehand. These two have so much fun together. 

  Psyched to be visiting Grandpops at his office, at the heart of Baylor's campus.

 Family Easter photo fail.  You can't win 'em all.

Our first 5K (I walked, Beckett strolled). It was a fundraiser for the crisis pregnancy center my mom volunteers for.  Kolby was on a mini-triathlon team with my brother and SIL.

 Yard helper.

 Love his sweet profile.

 At the park on the first day of spring.  This kid is taking spring by storm.

  You only live once.

 This is one of my favorite pictures of Beckett.  He just looks so innocent and perfect.  I took this at our follow up visit with the pediatric cardiologist, where he got an A+ and we were assured that his heartbeat (although still irregular at times) is no cause for concern whatsoever and we never have to see a dr again about it.

 Beautiful, sleeping boy.

Admiring the loot he collected in our yard and on our walk.